Below is a transcript of the episode as generated by Otter.ai. (*please note, this transcript has only been edited to put in line breaks for easier readability and may contain errors where a word or phrase is lost in transcription.)

[0:35] Introduction to Topic

Hello, hi, everyone. This is Dr. BethAnne Kapansky. Wright, and welcome to Your Heart Magic. Today we are talking about breaking toxic patterns and cycles.
You all know I love every topic that I talk about. I love it for different reasons. Sometimes I love it because it lights me up. And it's something super juicy. And sometimes I love it because it's so relevant to where we're at right now in this world.

And oftentimes, if I'm talking about it on here, I'm working on it myself in my own life, or I have something that ties back into it, where it's of interest to me. And I feel like this idea of breaking toxic patterns and cycles is so relevant right now. Because it's so easy on our human journey to get stuck in patterns and ruts and habits and cycles in our life that aren't serving us.

And it can be hard to unstick ourselves from that. And it can be hard to figure out how do I move forward? And how do I let go of something that sometimes isn't serving us or has become a pollutant or a poison and our life, which is what a toxicity is? I also think that if we just do a general observation of the world around us, and kind of did a took a little crash course from everybody.

And you know, I asked each of you the question, what toxic cycles do you see in humanity? There's a lot of things that we see about humanity as a collective, and some of the themes that we see perhaps in our world that have spread out over time, and have repeated themselves, or ways right now modern events that maybe we look at, and we say I don't know what the solution to it is.

But the same thing keeps happening again and again and again. And why is that? And how can we change that. So I think this is a really relevant topic. It's certainly an interesting one. And I want to, from the start of this just kind of make a differentiation today that there's many forms of toxic cycles in this world, and many forms of toxic cycles that we might encounter.

And it is hard to, I suppose like, quantify them and be like, there's this one, and there's this one, and there's this one, because something that becomes a repeated pattern that is harmful to one individual might be something that is not a problem for somebody else, or might not be something that they even fall into a pattern with. So the idea behind this today isn't so much to be like, here's the top five toxic cycles that might be happening in your life that you might not even realize, that has never been what this podcast is about.

And I just want to kind of couch all of this - sometimes toxic cycles are really harmful to us like a very active addiction, or being an abusive relationship where the person is being harmed. And I'm not casting my net quite so broad today. Certainly, if those things are going on, there might be some helpful things that come from this podcast. But in those instances, that is usually when the individual really needs to seek help, and might not be able to get there and breaking it through their own devices. So I'm looking a little bit more at the bell curve today of stuff that we all might struggle with, and holes that we all might fall into that are really relatable and struggles on the human journey.
 
So it's interesting because our world is actually composed of patterns and cycles. When we don't have patterns or cycles, things feel really chaotic and they feel unpredictable and they feel really inconsistent. And if we look at the natural world around us, there are times where it goes through chaos.

But oftentimes there are these predictabilities like we know that at night time the sun is going to set the stars and the moon are likely going to come out if they are in a position where we can see them and we live someplace where We can see them, we know that Dawn is going to come. And with it fresh light and the promise of a new day and a sunrise. And we know that even if it's cloudy out, and we can't see the sun, it's still there. Because it's bright. We know that there are certain seasons that things follow. And we know that developmentally, you can't stop the clock, we will be born into this world, we will age our bodies will go through biological changes, we will go through developmental changes. And at some point, like we will pass from this earth, there are these certain rhythms and cycles that we go through, and our world is composed of them.

[5:45] Healthy Cycles Vs. Unhealthy Cycles

And so we create patterns and cycles, and our life is a reflection of this place that we're living. In. Certainly, there's some room for some chaos theory and random things to happen. But most of us tend to find some sort of consistency and pattern in our day to day life. It's part of what keeps us grounded. That's why it's usually very grounding if we're going through big massive change, because our pattern is disrupted. And we're like, what do I do with myself? Nothing's predictable right now. And we have to create a new pattern, a new cycle in our life.

And the other night, I was walking the dogs around close to sunset. And I was thinking about what is the difference between something that is a natural cycle or a natural progression. Aggression is something that is toxic, and toxic, and toxins a poison. It's a pollutant, it is something that poisons whatever atmosphere, this toxin comes into.

And I think it's helpful to think about this on a spectrum where there might be mild toxins, like if somebody has a mild allergy, and they have dust or something kind of fly into their respiratory tract, they're probably going to sneeze or their allergies might get activated. Versus if something is a very severe toxin, it might hold the capacity to poison or to do a lot of harm.

So it might be helpful to think about this today as more of a spectrum, and less of a is it or is it not, there might be some patterns in our life that are mildly toxic that we say I don't think this is great for me, but I don't feel called to change it right now. Usually, it's when something becomes kind of the middle of the spectrum to more severe that we say this is no longer serving me. And I'd like to make some changes.

And I think part of how we identify a toxin or toxic pattern in our life, is when we look at is this serving me? Am I growing from this? Do I feel stuck? Do I feel like I am stuck in the same time loop or doing the same thing over and over again, where I'm not progressing? I'm not having growth, I am maybe even feeling like I'm backtracking. And I continue to cover the same ground that I thought I already walked on.

And sometimes we do circle back around to something. But usually we will find like a deeper insight or deeper clarity or a deeper truth. And it might free us up even more to find growth from that. But maybe we feel like we're not finding those things. And we get that sense of like, there is nothing new for me to learn here. So why do I keep falling back into this thing.

So if something hinders our progress, if something blocks our heart, let's say something's causing us a lot of anxiety, and we spend a lot of time in our mind thinking about this relationship that we're in, or this friend group that we're in, or this thing that we keep keeping in our life, and we wonder is this good for me, and we are wasting all this time thinking about it. All of those might be indicators that something in your life isn't serving you and that it is being a little bit of a pollutant or maybe a lot of a bit of a pollutant to your environment.

And I think that what we do when we realize that is we begin to ask ourselves the question, what is the problem? Why is that problematic? How is it problematic? And is it really problematic? Or am I just afraid that it's problematic? And so I'm spending a lot of time having anxiety about something and maybe it's not as bad as I think it is.

So there's many points of intervention where we can do some self reflection and self analysis. But when we create unhealthy patterns in our life that become toxic at some point. This can happen in multiple ways, and some of the most common one to really begin with our thought life, and toxic thought patterns, because how we think about the world around us, often affects and informs how we're going to interact and behave with the world around us, and how we relate to the world around us.

[10:18] How Beliefs Create Patterns

So if we have a toxic pattern, where we're really stuck in something like shame, or self blame, or feeling like we exist in order to lift others up without any regard for ourselves, if there's a belief that it's not okay for you to take up space, and somehow your job is to make sure other people feel okay, and if they're filled up, that makes you feel good, those kinds of things can really be toxic thoughts that impact our behavior. And that leads us into negative relationships, negative experiences, may be making negative choices that don't really serve us.

So our thought life can certainly be a place for those or are at, I think that our relational life is an area where many of us might fall into relationships that don't serve us, it's pretty common these days, people love using well, they were just a really toxic person, I didn't want to be around their toxicity. You know, it's kind of this, it's, it's come down into our vernacular, where we say that about somebody, and sometimes the person may be really as toxic for us. And if sometimes, maybe we're being really hard on somebody, I can't make that call, that's really up for us as individuals to decide.

But there are toxic people and toxic relationships. And sometimes we will get stuck and relationships in a friendship or a romantic relationship that are very harmful to us. And so we're falling into a pattern where maybe the person is very critical, or our needs aren't taken into account. And there's always this elevation of their needs and wants, there's many ways that we can fall into a toxic relationship.

And it's really common, that people experience that there's not really a relationship 101 That is taught from the get go, where we go into school, and somebody says, Here's what mutual respect looks like, here's what healthy relationships look like, here is what healthy communication looks like. Those things usually aren't taught. They are maybe taught in the home, perhaps if you take a class somewhere along the way, where there is some sort of training involved in how to relate to others and effective way, or maybe you read a book, but a lot of times we act with what's modeled to us.

And if we don't have a healthy family, or we haven't had healthy friendships, and we haven't been taught to respect ourselves, or we haven't been taught anything about setting boundaries and relationships, it's really easy to fall into a pattern of unhealthy relating, and to end up in a relationship that feels toxic. I'm raising my hand, you can't see me. But I can think of several relationships that I had that would, I would feel comfortable saying, Yeah, they were a toxic person for me. And I fell right into that. And it was really hard to pop myself out of them.

So that's a pretty common one that a lot of us struggle with. And when we get into something like that, usually what happens is there is this bleeding effect, where like if we're in an unhealthy relationship, whether that is because we didn't have healthy values around the relationship, or maybe we knew better, and we did it anyways. And it alters how we're looking at things, how we think about things over time. You know, it's usually not like this one area feels toxic.

Usually, if there's something in our life that feels like a toxin, little bit like if we're allergic, and we start having a sneezing attack, and then as a defense, like our nose stuffs up, and sometimes our sinuses will drain, there's like this, this ripple effect, where it starts to affect multiple things in our system.

The same holds true for toxic patterns. If your toxic pattern is procrastination, and I'm calling it toxic in the sense that you feel like it is harming you like there's almost like this poison to it. Because when you procrastinate, you get super stressed because stuff isn't done. And when stuff isn't done, then you're really hard on yourself and you beat yourself up because you think what's wrong with me? You know, I knew I had to do this and I waited to the last minute and again and why do I make life harder on myself than it has to be?

And so now you're stressed whatever was supposed to be done isn't done. Now you're beating yourself up and let's say that that reinforces well I'm just going to give up and not doing anyways and And you know, maybe what comes from that is you missed the deadline, or you don't follow through on something that you was important. And now you're in trouble. Let's say somebody's mad at you or you didn't like, I don't know, they're upset, or you bailed on something.

And that is going to create probably more motivation to kind of tell yourself this story. See, I can't do anything, right? Do you see how all of that is working together, and it's all kind of supporting, maybe this pattern of staying stuck, and how there's almost like a pattern around that usually, whatever the behavior, or action or thought is, we can map out when I feel this way, and I'm thinking this, what do I do, maybe I feel really bad about myself. And I beat myself up a lot. And that's a toxic pattern in my thought life.

So maybe when I beat myself up, I skip my workout. And I have a really hard time dragging myself out of bed, and I get ready for work or get ready to go out, but I don't take good care with my appearance. And then I don't feel good, because I just don't feel like I feel kind of like sloppy, or something like that. And then that makes me feel bad, like everybody else is winning at life. And I'm not winning.

Do you see the pattern there? And how there might be like multiple points of intervention along that pattern, where you could form some form of a plan and step in and say, Hey, let's not do this today. You know, like, let's have some awareness about this pattern. And when I'm feeling this, this is how I'm going to choose to act instead.

[16:44] Shining A Light On the Issue

So when we have patterns in our life, usually there are different points where we can try and create something different. So we don't keep falling into the same thing. And that actually kind of brings me to the first point that I wanted to make about breaking toxic cycles and patterns and our life. And the first point is that we need to shine light on them.

So if we're in a space of denial, then probably like, we're not gonna get very far in breaking something like if we feel like something's not a problem, or we don't want to admit that it's a problem, or we don't want to face it like that right there. Like, you're not going very far. But I'm going to assume that everybody who's listening to this who is nodding along and saying like, yeah, I want to like address the stuff in my life, because I've learned when I don't, it just causes me more problems.

So you want to turn the lights on in those spaces? Well, the first step just is awareness, it is the ability to look at things clearly. And we've talked before about living your truth, I did a full podcast on that. And that sometimes it is hard to see things clearly. So we can stay at this point of doing assessment and trying to look at something clearly through a new light for quite a while.

And the talking points I'm going to introduce today are not like step one, step two, step three, step four, there is a little bit of a progression to them. But I feel kind of like stages and grief and experiences with grief. You might weave your way through all of these and keep coming back. And you know, kind of doing one thing bouncing to the next going back to the first one. So there's a little bit of a progression to the ideas I'm going to share today.

But in some ways, they're also very fluid. And we'll keep going back to some of these things that I mentioned. You might see things with clarity, decide to take an action step, maybe the action step doesn't work. And that pops you back to what did I miss? And what am I not seeing that I'm having such a hard time with this.

But I think the first point of intervention with ourselves is to be honest. And when I was thinking about the content of this episode, I actually wrote out don't balderdash yourself. There is a car game that when I was in elementary school, it was called bologna. And it was about like, you know, you try and lie and cheat your way and get rid of your cards faster. And so you would be like, I've got three twos, you know, and lay those down on the table. And if somebody's holding three twos, they would say baloney. Part of what makes it fun is that let's say somebody doesn't have three twos, one person's got one another person has another you actually have to and you're just lying, trying to squeeze out a third card and lay it down then they have to decide is this person lying or not? This game is also called B S, which I'm not opposed to the word just aware that maybe you are listening to this and you got kiddos or something in the car. So we all know what that stands for.

And I think there's a game called balderdash that is similar to this and it's all about lying. And if somebody be asking you, are they baloney and you and, you know, usually these are fun games, and it is kind of fun to try and lie in them, I have to admit I've never liked these games because I don't like dishonesty. Like even in a game setting, I've never been super good at it. So it's not something that comes like naturally to me, poker and all that, like, I've never been drawn to those things. But they were fun as a kid. And it passed the time.

And I was thinking of this idea of don't balderdash yourself, and it's like, okay, don't lie to yourself. If something is toxic in your life, we can at least start with admitting it, we're not committing to saying I'm gonna get rid of it today, this isn't good for me. And I'm done. That's sometimes what keeps us stuck in a state of denial, because we're afraid if we admit the truth, like, we're going to have to make an immediate change. And I've often found this isn't true.

A lot of times admitting the truth is a doorway to opening ourselves up to a new perspective and a new viewpoint. And it might lead us to whatever the fear is, like, if I admit this, I'm gonna have to let go of it. Sometimes not. Sometimes that leads us on a different path. Sometimes there are ways to work with something in our life, where we don't have to necessarily have like this black and white, all or nothing. But we can come up with like a third option, it just depends on what it is.

But I think when we lie to ourselves, we are continuing to keep the lights off and keep it dark, and something that we don't want to look at. And so we can't move forward. So that's the first thing we have to do is make what doesn't want to be conscious, and know and conscious and knowing and bring new awareness to it. And once we figure out something isn't good for us, and it's not serving us, and we're stuck in a bad relationship, or we have a bad behavior in our life. Or we have something that is a really negative thought life.

[22:05] Identifying Why You're Stuck

I think that the next thing that we really want to look at is how is this serving me? Like, how did this come to be? And why am I staying in this? Like, why? What are my things like, how is this like, what's keeping me stuck? We can spend a lot of time exploring this, people go to therapy, to explore this, please go to therapy to explore this. If you're feeling really stuck with something, sometimes another perspective is exactly what we need.

Because oftentimes, we get very trapped in our own mentality. And so we need somebody else's perspective, or we need a book or a podcast or some form of an epiphany to help us see things differently. But I think it's really interesting to ask ourselves, is this serving me in some capacity, let's say somebody is in a toxic relationship, and they know that it's expired, like it's well beyond the shelf life of what it should have been.

But let's say they're like really afraid of being alone. And let's say this relationship maybe serves them socially, where they're seeing somebody who is kind of one of like, the end members of whatever group they want to be a part of. And so there's fear there, not only will I be alone, but there's going to be the fallout and like, What if I lose my friends? What if I kind of lose my status within that group? And what if I feel like I'm the Hungry Ghost like on the outside looking in, because I've gone through a breakup. And now I don't have an invitation at the table anymore, because the person I was with had more status than me, or more power in the group. And so I'm the odd man out, and I'm really lonely. And I feel like I don't belong.

And I think that those are certainly reasons and motivations that sometimes somebody might say, I don't know that I'm ready to face all that yet. And they're worth exploring. There's many, many things that can keep us stuck. And there's many things that keep us on these negative feedback loops, where even though it's not good for us, like fear keeps us stuck. Um, that's usually the number one thing is we're afraid of what's going to happen if we let go of something. And we are afraid of the Fallout or afraid of really the unknown and afraid of what we might lose. We're afraid maybe of people being mad at us if we change something we're afraid of loss of it might be status, it might be money, it might be relationship.

And let's be honest, even if we are on a spiritual path. I just smiled saying that we're actually all on spiritual paths, even the people who don't say think they are, the human journey is the spiritual path. So let me go back and like, do a read you there, if we are like actively trying to live by our spiritual principles, and we are trying to live in a way that we're calling in higher perspective and being more higher-minded, and we're trying to have more of a love based consciousness and abundant space consciousness and a joy based consciousness, and we are invested and working with Shadow stuff, and turning the lights on, because we want the growth.

So oftentimes, if we're that person, I think sometimes we are so spiritually minded, that it's easy to be a little bit dishonest with ourselves. And to kind of challenge the questions of, well, maybe I am holding on to this for the money, or I'm afraid of loss of status, those things often don't sound very spiritual to us.
 
So I think that's an easy place sometimes where we might almost be afraid to admit that, you know, I certainly think about times where I have not wanted to admit something, because I didn't like how it made me sound. And I've had to call myself on it. I've had people call me on it before, that I trust and that I work with, who said something along the lines of like, that's just another human emotion, why are you so afraid to admit that and I'm like, why don't like how it sounds, I want to feel like I've evolved beyond this, you know, but the truth is, is that a lot of us haven't evolved beyond these things. This is the stuff that we're consciously working with, and the karma and the stock stuff that we're consciously transmuting during our journey here.

So this is actually where like, the gold is, and where, like the mud is that we're gonna, like, you know, work through it and plant those deep roots and become the beautiful lotus flower is when we admit the hard truths. And maybe we say, I wish I was more spiritually minded, and I wish I had more faith. But I'm terrified that if I leave this relationship, I'm going to have this horrible fallout. Or if I leave this job, that is offering me financial peace of mind and security right now that I'm not going to make the same salary, and I'm gonna have to make some lifestyle changes. Or I'm gonna go into a space where I'm in lack, and I'm terrified about these are good things to admit, this is the stuff that we start to do the active work, where we are turning the lights on, and we're taking what we're afraid to make conscious. And we're making it conscious.

And this is the stuff that really helps us see, where am I stuck? Like, if we're afraid to admit why we're staying in something, as we don't like how it sounds? That right there is a beautiful thing to turn the lights on about and to say, Why am I afraid to admit this and examine this, you know, and if the fear is I don't sound spiritual enough, that's a great fear to like punch that in the face. And be like, Well remember, like the human journey is the spiritual journey. So you're always spiritual enough.

And when we allow ourselves to look at hard truths, and look at things that are keeping us stuck, even if we don't like how they sound, like that's really where the raw material is, that's where the alchemy is where we can start to say, hmm, I am not above this. Actually, I'm right in the thick of this. And I'm going to work with this as constructively as possible to transmute it. And in order to do that, I actually have to know what I'm working with first.
 
So identifying what keeps us stuck, and then identifying what might keep us stuck and staying stuck. So are you afraid to admit something, not only are you stuck, but you're afraid to acknowledge it?

[28:50] Making A Conscious Decision to Change

The next thing that I wrote down that I think is an integral part of breaking a cycle is coming to a place where we make a conscious decision to change. And I see two points of intervention here. And I've been at both of these myself. And I'm going to share in just a moment, a couple of things that I have been actively working on in my own life and toxic patterns that I've been like popping myself out of this year.

But the first one with the conscious decision to change might look something like this. I am terrified of letting fill in the blank, whatever it is go. I am terrified of changing it. But I believe somewhere in me I need to help me want to want to change. Help me find what I need. So that I can move into a place of consciously saying I am not doing this anymore, and I feel ready to take that action step. I think they call that the pre contemplation phase and like some addiction stuff and in motivational interviewing in psychology when you're looking at working with somebody, and what are the steps that somebody takes to changing, there's this like pre contemplation phase.

And pre contemplation phase is a lot of times exactly what it sounds like. Like, it's kind of like all the stuff that comes before the serious contemplation where you're thinking about thinking about making the change. And you're kind of thinking about what the problem is, but you're not really ready to commit.

So I feel like it is enough. If you are in that space to have some prayer time with spirit, get into your heart and say, I do not know what to do with this, I don't even know if I'm ready to ask for change. But I do feel like something has to shift. So help me to find what I need to step into that shift, help to help me to open my heart that things could be different. There's many ways that you could phrase that. And then the second one is when you are ready, and you're like, This is so not serving me, I am so ready to make a change here. And like, here I go. And here's how I want to do it.

And this really speaks to kind of the nuts and bolts of the second point that not only do we have to make a conscious decision to change, but we have to realize that the deeper ingrained a pattern is in our life, probably the more effort we're going to have to put into it. And the more conscientious that we are going to have to be about making that change. And the more we might have to like put a plan together, or really look at what is the pattern? And what's causing me to fall into this. And like what are some of the different points of intervention, not always, I've definitely heard stories where somebody was just like, this wasn't like was really unhealthy. And I was really stuck until one day it wasn't. And it's almost like this miracle happened, where they just walked away from something and never looked back.

But more often than not, those are stories that I think I've like read in a book, where somebody's like, this was the secret ingredient that helped me. And if you read this book, and pay some money, here's how it's gonna help you to a lot of the people that I've worked with, and on my own journey included, it's never quite been that easy. It usually requires conscious applied action. And I think that's because there isn't like this magic pill of one moment, we were there. And then we weren't spontaneous healing can occur.

But I think a lot of times, like the growth that we have as a soul is in learning how to leave something behind, it's learning how to break the cycle, there is just so much gold that can come from that space when we're actively trying to transform something destructive, and reconstruct something better in our lives. And we're going to get into this in a little bit. But a lot of times in that process as well is when we can really do the work of like healing karma, and working on ancestral wounds and thinking about those who came before us, you might struggle with the same thing. So there's often not like a time warp, where you just get to uplevel without applying effort.

[33:13] My Story Part 1: The 'Are You My Mother?' Trap

So a couple of things that I wanted to share today from my own story, two different examples. The first one that I've been actively working on changing this year that I feel is a toxic pattern in my life has to do with thought life. And it has to do with issues around things like self esteem and self worth and, and specifically this chapter and my life where I made like this huge life change and was like I am leaving Alaska. I'm going to Kauai I am going to follow my dreams.

And those dreams being I would like to speak on a bigger level, I've got so many books in me and things that I want to write. And some of that's still unknown, I had this calling that I felt like I wanted to spiritually serve in a bigger capacity than what I felt I was doing in Alaska in my private practice. And I wanted to be able to use my gifts of intuition and my channel with spirit and some of my artistic talents and my teaching talents.

In addition to just I should say, just doing one on one work, but I wanted to evolve that and create bigger things and bigger tools that would help other people find courage of heart and heart wisdom. So that is kind of this bigger dream that I have that I've been working on. And something that happened in my time in Kauai is I really ran into this trap of I call it the Are you my mother and I've talked about this before think but it was sort of this idea that I came here to do this certain thing. And so I was like always searching for it is this it publication opportunity comes my way Maybe this is a maybe this is the book, maybe this is the article, maybe this is the conference that I was supposed to speak at.

And I felt a lot like this sense of like, Are you my mother? Are you my mother? Are you my mother? Is this where I belong? Is this the big thing is this the blueprint is this one is going to give me the direction. And, you know, I kind of know at this point that it was never about this one thing. It's really about bigger space to become a bigger BethAnne, it is about co-creating with spirit. It is about working within the multiple cycles that are going on cosmically and karmically, and collectively, and how my journey intersects with those, but I didn't know that a few years back, I didn't know that when I first came over here.

And what happened is, I started to develop a little bit of a chip on my shoulder, where every time I felt like I, you know, did this thing, maybe I published an article, maybe I created a course, maybe I taught a workshop, and I would have this expectation that something bigger would come from it. And sometimes it did, a lot of times, it was just an experience, and a growth or learning experience. And sometimes it was an experience that the growth was don't do that, again, like that just did not work out at all. And here's why.

But this chip on my shoulder was sort of this like, anger spirit, like, Hey, I took the leap of faith, I left my you know, cozy job and life behind, I follow this soul calling, like, When am I going to get mine? It's ugly. Like, it's, you know, I feel like I can speak it now and share it because I've done a lot of work around this, obviously. But like, it was like so childish, and so resentful. And oh, I could just go back and like, give myself a big hug, it was just a growth thing that I had to go through. I didn't know. And I didn't realize that, why I thought I was here versus what I think was really going to happen were actually different things.

And so somewhere in that part of what I developed was the sense of like, feeling really down on myself, and thought life around, it's never going to happen, you know, your work isn't valued, things like that, that would make me feel like bad about myself. And I see it very clearly. Now, it happens or is prone to happen, like anytime that I felt like I put myself out there. And then I felt like either I got knocked down, or nothing came from it or got disappointed. And that contributed to like this pattern of discouragement, and then stories around that discouragement.

And so I'm seeing those things really clearly now. And I feel like I'm doing a good job popping myself out of it, which is why I can kind of talk about it and hopefully shine some light on it. I know, I'm not the only one. But I do see where I would fall into that. And then I would feel kind of depressed about myself. And I would feel really down. And like earlier, when we were talking about how these things have this ripple effect in this trickle effect. It was influenced like these other areas of my life. And of course, it affected my mood. And it affected any sense of gratitude I had and a sense of being present and enjoying things.

So when we talk about a toxic cycle. And how toxic was that? Well, certainly we all deal with discouragement, that's a very human thing. But you can see where it was like a slow-moving poison, it might not be the worst thing. It's not like my toxic pattern was like going out and having an issue with stealing, you know, and taking stuff that wasn't mine. And repeatedly shoplifting where there was maybe perhaps immediate legal issues where somebody would say like, that's problematic, like what happens if you get caught, you could get in a lot of trouble.

You know, it was more like the slow-moving poison that was slowly infiltrating itself through my life and all these ways and impacting my experience to live with more joy, and more vitality, and more vibrancy and to just embrace the experience for what it is. You know, ultimately, whatever comes from this chapter of living and kawaii will have gifts with it. Some of those will be difficult gifts, that there was hidden light in there and some of it will be beautiful and magical gifts. But ultimately the experience will be what it is. It was never meant to look a certain way. And I didn't understand that at the time. And so it was the slow-moving poison.

[39:32] My Story Part 2: Choosing to Be Alcohol-Free

And that really ties into kind of the second thing that I've been actively working on changing this year. And it's kind of cool. I did not plan this but what I love about spirit and timing so much is just synchronicity and magic. And I realized that this podcast is going to drop on Friday, May 26 And Saturday, May 27 will actually mark the ninth month for me, of living alcohol-free.

And this is something that when I tell people, they usually will be like, wait, what, a lot of times, I'll just tell them, Oh, I'm sober. And they do not know how to receive that information. Because if you look at me, and you look at my life, I do not look like somebody who had a struggle with that. But I did have a struggle with that. And when I talk about this, like slow-moving poison in my life, I was somebody who was really starting to lean on alcohol as a way to kind of Enesta size myself to some of the things I was dealing with.
 
So something in my life that at one point wasn't a problem, and slowly became something that had like these deeper and deeper roots and became my go to thing ultimately began to feel like a problem to me. And I could probably make a whole other podcast about this, I would like to, I made a conscious decision today to share this and just talk about it as, hey, this is something I was struggling with. And here's where I'm at now, without necessarily making the whole podcast be about that.

But part of where I finally arrived at this place, as I was really looking back at my past. And I was saying like, Hmm, look at the pattern this has created in your life, right, I turned the lights on. And it wasn't the first time I turned the lights on in that room. Before I really made the shift. I'd thought about it for a long time. And I'd wanted to and I had done that prayer helped me to want to want to, or to find what I need, like I finally got sick of writing that in my journal.

But you know, I really had done a lot of light turning on. And I had actually done a lot of that almost like pre conscious decision making, I would like to be in this place. But I'm not ready to let this go yet, I have a lot of fear. They're like, Who will I be without this, it was a long term coping for me. And just a lot of ways that it's really hard to let go of something and make that kind of behavioral change when it's become a part of a regular pattern in your life. So there was a lot of stuff that was keeping me stuck. And I really came to this crossroads. And I'm looking back at where I've been and saying like, I don't like the pattern that I see here, because what I'm seeing is that the longer this goes on, it's just taking me a little bit deeper down into a space that I don't want to go.

And what feels like a gray area problem now actually has the capacity to maybe become even bigger than that at some point if I don't do something about it. And then I was looking ahead to my future. And I was looking at where I want to go and just who I want to be. And really outlining these intentions of why I want to be somebody with integrity and energy and vitality. Like I have these big goals.

And it was almost like I was standing and this void and kind of looking at where I was at which was dropping kind of lower, like the leap to get to where I wanted to go just kept looking further and further away, the longer I kept this thing in my life. And I finally came to a moment this past August of like really letting it go. And it didn't happen magically. There's a whole story behind that that is magical.

And I'm not going to tell it today. I'll tell it some other time. I would say that the combination was somewhat spirits alchemy, but a lot of inner work for me to get me to a place of really being ready to say, Hey, I tried to change this before, and I fell back into the same thing. And why have I not been able to effectively change this and what's been keeping me stuck. It's like all the work I had done to like really explore that and examine it ultimately did serve to help me stand in a stronger place and be like BethAnne If you don't make a conscious effort to shift this, like right now, because you were here a year ago, right around the same time and you know, look what happened, nothing changed. You fell back into things after a few weeks.
 
So if you don't do this, again, you're going to be in the same place. Six months from now or a year from now or the next new moon or whatever magical timing it was that I would write intentions in my journal and kind of write something like I want to deprioritize drinking in my life. I was really scared of giving it up entirely. And if you've ever gone through that you understand why it's a lot to ask us to release something that we ingest, whether it's caffeine or sugar or something like wine was my thing. It's a lot to just be like wait, I'm just gonna give it up entirely. What is life look like after that?

[44:51] Choosing to Share My Process & Work of Change

But ultimately, I decided that was the right decision for me. And so I've spent the last nine months like really just living that journey. This is the first time that I've gone public Given this kind of way to talk about it, and it's just ready, it's time. But I've told a few people. But I really embodied that sense of when we make a conscious change, we don't have to go announce it to everybody. Like, we might tell people that are important to us, Hey, I'm working on this thing. I appreciate your support thinks we might seek appropriate like avenues of help or something like that.

So we might choose to tell somebody and have reasons behind that. But we don't need to like go broadcast to the world, this is who I am now, you know, I've just been trying to embody exactly what I would teach anybody to do. Roll up your sleeves, and go about the work of change and go through the mud and the grid in order to be in a place where you feel more transformed, and you feel like the light is coming through.

And that shift really started happening for me some time over the last couple of months, where it's just normal that like, this is just who I am now. And I feel like I did a lot of the work behind. Why was this a problem in my life? And why did it become so much problem or problematic over the last few years. And part of that was influenced, or I guess, affected by or related to what I said earlier, of like this toxic pattern of falling into the story of feeling lost, and like I didn't fit and feeling like I didn't hold value.

And so you can see where like, what am I going to do when I feel that way, it became harder and harder to do something constructive. And so sometimes we do things that are destructive for us. And I chose to talk about these two things specifically today, because I felt like they might be really relatable.

[46:44] Falling into Old Stories

Whether or not those are things that you struggle with, specifically to you, I think many of us struggle with falling into these pits of despair inside of ourselves. And there's kind of this old story there that we're trying to bust ourselves out of, but we don't know what the new story will look like. And so many times when we fall into that pit, there is a toxic pattern or behavior that's attached to that. And that might be something that we do to cope, it might be procrastination and not doing something, you know, it's something usually like they tend to go hand in hand.

And I really think that when we don't talk about these things, it does a disservice. Because when we don't talk about something, there's like that toxic pattern of silence. There's a time to not speak, where we're just doing the work of self. But I think there's a time when we talk about bringing something that wasn't made conscious out into the light. Like I know, for myself, ultimately, any change I go through, I will bring out into the light and talk about it at some point, because it's just part of my calling, or I'm going to write about it.

And yes, I was absolutely terrified, nine months ago, when I really chose this path, and like I meant it, it is an inspiring story, I will tell it at some point, but like I meant it. And I thought oh my god, this means someday you're gonna have to turn around and talk about this, because I already knew my own journey. And that I've used everything hard in my life to eventually speak about or like say, this is part of who I am, this is part of my story. And like, then my mind would just do this mental shutdown thing.

And I couldn't even let myself think about that for I don't know, like the first 100 days or something like that. I was like, That'll come later. It is scary. When we make a change. I do acknowledge that. But we're brave, we are here to be a light. And we can find that in us.

[48:47] Faith In The Process

And that brings me to my next point. I just have a couple more to make today before we wrap up today. And that is another, I guess rule of thumb to breaking toxic patterns in cycles is faith in the process. I don't think I know anybody who left behind a toxic pattern that was familiar to them. And if it's familiar to you, it's comfortable. Even if it's not serving you. It's just one of the weird paradoxes of being human. We can be like in a relationship or have something addictive, or have something that we're repeatedly doing that actually is harming us, but we're terrified of letting go because we don't know how it's gonna look without it.

And in some ways, the longer we do something, it feels familiar. There is a comfortability in it like we know who we are when we're in that territory, even if we don't like it. Psychologically, we know the landscape of it. And so when we're thinking about breaking something and stepping away from it, it's like the psychological wasteland. Well, what do I do next? Who will I become?

And so there is a little bit of like loosening your grip, and just having faith in the process. assess. And I really did this for myself, I remember being like, I know there's light weighting on the other side, but I don't know what it is. And I don't know what I'll look like at that point. Like, you know, I'd probably use mine as a coping tool for a coping tool. That's a nice euphemism to put it out.

But probably for like about a decade, and like, in the last five years, you know, I really struggled with it. And I was like, who's BethAnne without this in her life? Like, what do I do when I'm stressed? What do I do? And oh, my gosh, can you hear the gold there? Like every question I had about what do I do when I'm this? What do I do when I'm not? Like all of those I have gone through and deconstructed. Well, why did you think this was the coping tool when you felt this way? Why did you think you couldn't tolerate it? Why were you over functioning, that this was a way that you were choosing to address this, so much to grow, like so much growth there, but it is terrifying, because we don't know who will look like.

And I remember going to my first wedding, her sober wedding, and I was flying solo, my husband couldn't go. And you know, every single person was drinking there, I think they had some juice the bar, but like they didn't even have a coke. You know, it was like water, coffee or alcohol. And finally, I managed to get pineapple juice because it was being used as a mixture for the my ties. And what's funny is probably not a single person there cared what was in my glass.

But I was so used to that as a social lubricant. And so used to that as a way that like, I felt confident, there's BethAnne - I just got a glass of white wine. And I felt like this like awkward T-Rex, like trying to like drink from a teacup, or something like that, like all of my social anxiety was out in full force. My Empath overload was out, I had a super stressful week, I hadn't had time to compartmentalize my stress, I just felt like a mess. And you know what? It was fine. I'm telling it now I'm laughing about it.

[51:57] Letting Go & Inviting Spirit Into the Process

And I had to trust that feeling awkward, it was actually not the worst thing that was going to happen to me. Worse than that was staying in something that my heart was saying to me, this is hurting you. This is holding you back, I didn't know how it is so easy to negotiate with something that is not good for us and say, well, it's not the worst thing ever. And I'm really high functioning. So at least I'm not doing this.

But if our heart is saying this is not for you, then it's not for you. Doesn't matter if it's worse off or better off than how somebody else's who might have that struggle. What matters is what your heart is telling you. And we have to have some faith and the nebula, it's the same thing when we go through any kind of metaphorical death. When we let go of something, we go through a blank slate period, a nebulous period. And we have to trust that on the other side of that there is something better waiting for us there is growth that will happen. And that is a really scary thing to do. And that's an excellent point in the process. Actually, all these points in the process are excellent.

But that's a really good time to invite in our relationship, just spirit and our higher self. And whatever gives us a higher perspective and say help guide me through this because I don't know right now. And trust the alchemy of your own transformation. I have talked extensively about personal transformation on this podcast, I will keep talking about it. That is what your heart magic is all about, is listening to our heart and surrendering to those processes, and allowing ourselves to become a higher expression, a bigger expression to and become who we no longer are and what wasn't serving us.

There was a time in my life, that you know, my relationship with alcohol was fine. You know, and it was probably part of who I was then I outgrew it, it was no longer serving me. And it's not necessarily that things got so much worse, it's that it became more and more compatible and compatible with the BethAnne that I was becoming. And that is the alchemy of the heart. As my heart kept growing as everything kept growing, it started to weed out all these old stories, all these old things that don't suit. So we have to trust that process and trust in the wisdom.

[54:23] Breaking Karmic Cycles Through Our Inner Work

And the last thing that I want to talk about is the spiritual implications when we break a cycle or are we at least actively engaged with it actually wrote down the talking point, kicking karmic ass and taking names. So often, always often when we do our own work, we are transforming the collective karma around us. The Akashic records have talked about how the records themselves are being cleansed. And old trauma and the records is being kind of cleansed and dumped from the records.

And how that happens is as we transform our trauma around something is we bring what is in the shadow to the light. And we say, I will be courageous, I will deal with this, you know, I will find a way to take a destructive thing and make it light, make it constructive, learn from it grow from it. That is part of what transmutes trauma and the records.

I share this today with so much freedom in my heart, because it's no longer trauma for me. It is I'm still new to talking about it. So that feels a little strange. I was like, Are we really going to do this today? And I was like, Yeah, we're going to do this today. It's just time. I figured if I tell the truth and start talking about it, it makes it more easy to keep talking about it. And I'm writing a new book, and it's in the book.

So I was like, You better start talking about this sister, friend. But there's not trauma there. There's not like this big shame that this was something in my life, there's a lot of freedom and joy of hey, we all struggle, but you don't stay there. And so when we bring light to a place that felt dark inside of us when we bring dignity and transformation to a place where fear ruled, where shame rolled, and where some sort of like, self-harm, self-wound, where the wound ruled, and all of a sudden, we're not in the wound, we're in the freedom of a light, because we know that we are liberating ourselves and we are breaking whatever the cycle is.

That is what transmutes trauma, and we do that work on behalf of ourselves. We do it on behalf of the ancestral line, when I look back at my family lineage, and kind of stories that I know about my ancestor, I have reason to believe that this was a pattern that many of them struggled with, I certainly know that issues around alcohol use and drug use and addiction. And all that is a huge issue in the collective at this time. It was a huge issue in our past.

So I look at that as as I free myself, I offer light to like that wound, I offer it to my ancestral wound. I don't carry any of this forward with me, I don't have children. But it there's such a ripple effect in my actions have choosing this path for myself. It's like moving into this whole different trajectory.

And there is such a huge ripple effect for choosing a new story. And continuing to actively work with some of that old story stuff that I shared earlier, that can be a struggle for me, or I'm like, Nope, we're writing a new story now. And part of my new story is gratitude and appreciation. And if I do something from this new paradigm of you know, BethAnne, and Hawaii, no matter how it does, let's say create an offering, I am so appreciative that I have the opportunity to do it now because I couldn't create those opportunities in my old life and Alaska.

And I'm really losing that attachment to does it perform well, does it not? And instead of trying to have a new attachment to gratitude that I get to do it, show appreciation that this got to be created in the first place to curiosity about what might come from this. And as you can see, that kind of thought life just encourages me to continue to be my most vibrant, healthy self, and to make good choices for myself. So it all weaves together.

[58:34] Start Where You're At

Start where you're at today. Whatever this podcast sparked in you, whether it is intention and desire and inspiration where you are like I'm taking an active step. This really helped me see I'd like to change this. And this is how I'm going to do it. Or at least I want to sit down in my journal and pray about it and kind of come up with some steps, or whether it planted some seeds. And you said there's some stuff I'm struggling with. I don't quite know what the solution is start where you're at, it doesn't matter.

This isn't about - breaking toxic patterns is not about here's how to do it 101 It is about you listening to your heart, it is about you turning the lights on and places inside of yourself so it becomes a little bit brighter. It is about not balderdash in yourself and being honest with yourself. It is about setting a conscious intention. Whether that is I'm really want to make this change or I don't think I'm ready. But I need to get out of this relationship and I'm feeling really stuck. And I'd like to find what I need to do that.

There's always a point of intervention. It is about calling on and invoking spirit and having faith in the process. There is new life always waiting on the other side of anything we leave behind. That is one of life's beautiful cycles and it is a natural cycle. It is the life to death to rebirth process. And it happened spiritually multiple times in our lifetime. That is a natural cycle and it will move you forwards.

So that is a cycle that you can trust in and you can trust in that alchemy. And then it is about knowing that as you do your inner work, you are offering your light to the collective, there's a ripple effect, whether that is somebody that you touched, because you tell them your story, or whether that's just done a spiritual ripple effect where collective karma is healed, and transmuted, and some of it is cleared, because you did your work yourself. Start where you're at. All right, that wraps up today's podcast.

[1:00:41] Coming Up Next Week

Next week, we are talking about oh, moving from fear to faith, I feel like that dovetails really nicely with some topics we touched on today. And I really want to dive into now. How do we find faith and a world that is increasingly fear based? And what happens like when we're the ones in fear, and we have anxiety over something or fear over what might happen? And how can we constructively work with that. It's not always realistic to just be in a space of perfect trust, and I will be supported no matter what I do. I'm sure some people are there. I'm not and most of the people that I talk to and work with arch. 

So for those that this feels relevant to who might struggle with fear and you're transmuting and working with that energy in your life, we're going to look at how do we move into a place of faith and what does that have to do with our heart magic and our heart wisdom? So I look forward to bringing that topic to you. 

Until then have a beautiful week. Be well be love, be you and be magic